Melissa Lushington

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Nickelodeon created memorable and impactful sitcoms that positively affected the Black community, especially young Black boys. However, a Nickelodeon sitcom that premiered in 2008 also had a positive effect on the Black community, particularly young Black girls. The sitcom I'm referring to is called True Jackson, V.P. The show was about a 15-year-old girl named True Jackson, who lands her dream job as vice president of an apparel line at a corporate fashion company called Mad Style. Once True starts working there, she soon realizes that the corporate fashion world is no different from high school. The show only lasted for two seasons, but its impact on young Black women was influential enough to make people agree that future generations need to have their own True Jackson, V.P.

First, it's important to mention that the show itself featured a young Black female as its star. Rather than portraying her as a janitor or in some type of low-paying job, True was given one of the highest positions in the company: vice president. This was something that rarely happened for people of color, especially women. Having a young Black woman who was also a teenager on screen, playing the lead role and working in a high-level position at a fashion company, was something special for the Black community.

“True Jackson VP was a show led with a person of color in a lead role and its premise had the character in an executive position so few people of color are in today,” Associate Editor Matt Reich explained in The Impact News. This type of representation was also empowering for young Black girls because it allowed them to see themselves in True and be inspired to pursue leadership roles, work in corporate businesses, or become CEOs of their own companies.

“Jackson’s sudden hiring to be a Vice President of a fashion company is the fantasy work of television. However, her character’s job position is a subtle inspiration for children of all races, especially children who are of color, and both genders that they can dream to run their own businesses,” he explains in the same source. “They can feel empowered to want to become leaders of companies as they progress to teenagers, to college students, and then as young professionals. An empowerment that is greatly needed to overcome the leadership glass ceilings that currently exist in many professional fields and industries.”

Speaking of glass ceilings, it's important to recognize the second reason why True Jackson, V.P. was impactful to the Black community: it brought up many important discussions regarding women and people of color in the workplace and how they're treated when it comes to equality. In corporate businesses, a small percentage of women and people of color hold leadership positions in the workplace.

“The reality of many companies and businesses is that women and people of color make a small fraction of CEO and leadership positions. A report by Fortune found of the sixteen Fortune 500 companies that were willing to share their employee demographic information only 20.5% of senior managers and 6.4% of CEO positions were held by women. Only 3% and 2% of senior executives are held by Latinos and African Americans. Based on these poor results and logic, if these companies were the one’s willing to share their information, then the companies not sharing have the same percentages or worse,” Matt explains in the same source. “The same is terrible for people of color in high-level positions. The Atlantic wrote last year about how there were only four CEO’s who were African American. As The Atlantic noted, Ken Chenault would step down in early 2018, which he did on February 1. Now, only three CEO’s are African American.”

Knowing these statistics, it's no wonder that True Jackson, V.P. was impactful to women of color because it gave women and young girls hope that these statistics could change. The younger generation has the power to be the change the corporate world needs to become more inclusive and equal.

Speaking of hope and change, a third reason why True Jackson, V.P. was impactful for women of color in the Black community is its similarities to Barack Obama and his presidency. When Obama was sworn in as President of the United States in 2009, one of the most memorable moments of his presidency was when he interacted with a young Black boy named Jacob.

“An image most remembered of the Obama Presidency is an image of a young boy named Jacob who asked to feel President Obama’s hair to see if it was like his hair. ‘I want to know if my hair is just like yours,’ he asked before Obama obliged by lower his head to be eye-level with Jacob,” Matt explains in the same source. “If you were to look at the images most used in describing his presidency this image is likely to be one of them. Despite the image being several years old, it has continued to resonate for the same reason a show like True Jackson VP does for me.”

When Jacob touched Obama's hair, it symbolized Jacob seeing himself in Obama and feeling equal to him. This is what makes role models valuable and important: they're able to provide us with guidance on what we should emulate in our lives. So, imagine the impact that True Jackson had on young Black girls in the early 2000s. She was able to make young Black girls feel equal to her, and she gave them the confidence to pursue their dreams and prove people wrong, just as she did.

“…I am not a woman or African American, yet, to see someone of color on television giving the orders, following her passion, and taking charge was a motivator for myself,” Matt explains in the same source. “I was not going around East Hampton, Connecticut saying, ‘Oh well True Jackson…’ as a thirteen-year-old, but the show helped add to my confidence and comfortability in stepping up to lead a group in a class project, to in a leadership position of a club, and say ‘I want to do…’ with authority not passiveness.”

Finally, True Jackson, V.P. was an impactful show for young Black women and girls because True Jackson demonstrated how effective a fictional character can be for future generations when portrayed thoughtfully. This doesn't mean that one character or show will fix all the problems in the world, but it can be a powerful influence, inspiring the next generation to be the change they want to see in the world.

In conclusion, True Jackson, V.P. was an underrated sitcom that deserved better than it was given. It's one of those shows you can reflect on years later and appreciate more as an adult than you did as a child.

    Last year, I was scrolling on Facebook when I came across a post written by American actress Christy Carlson Romano. In the Facebook post, Christy referred to Millennials as “The Bridge Generation.” There's a video of her looking out the window, along with a quote in which she says, “Millennials are nostalgic because we’re grieving a world that doesn’t exist anymore.” When I first read that quote, it hit me hard because that's exactly how I feel. I've felt this way for quite some time, but now that I'm 30 years old, I feel it more deeply, and it feels depressing. It feels depressing because I know that the world I'm currently living in is different from the world I grew up in. I also know that the older I get, the more drastically society will change in ways that will become increasingly unrecognizable. Most importantly, I know that the more drastically life changes, the more my childhood slips away from me until there's nothing left but memories.

In the past, I've often looked at Facebook posts featuring images of things and activities that used to exist in the '90s and early 2000s. I would think to myself about how much easier life was back in the day, especially when I was a child growing up in the late '90s and early 2000s. In her Facebook post, Christy reflects on how, back in the '90s and early 2000s, life was about living in the moment and cherishing the experiences happening in front of you. Even if those moments were being documented, at least they were recorded for the purpose of preserving cherished family memories so you could watch them years later in the privacy of your home with family and friends. However, people today are raising their kids in a world where moments are documented on camera for the purpose of creating social media clickbait and monetizing personal memories shared with the world.

“We witnessed the before and after of everything—before social media, before smartphones became extensions of our hands, before every moment needed to be documented and optimized. We remember when the internet was a place you ‘went to’ instead of something you lived inside of. When going to Blockbuster on Friday night was an event, not a meme,” Christy explained. “And now we're raising kids in a world we barely recognize ourselves. Trying to explain what it felt like to have mystery—to wonder about something and just… not know. To have inside jokes that stayed inside because there was no group chat to screenshot them in. To make mistakes that didn't follow you forever.”

Christy also explained why she referred to Millennials as “The Bridge Generation.” It's simply because we're the generation that has the ability to hold on to what's left of our childhood and preserve our generational experiences. At the same time, we're mourning and grieving the childhood we've lost forever.

“The nostalgia hits different when you realize you're not just missing the past—you're grieving the loss of a pace of life that no longer exists. A simplicity that Gen Z will never understand because they never experienced it. We're the bridge generation, and sometimes it feels like we're standing in the middle watching both sides drift further apart,” she explained. “Maybe that's why we hold onto our '90s/2000s references so tightly. It's not just nostalgia. It's preservation.”

The reason nostalgia hits differently today for Millennials is that we're waking up and realizing how timeless and precious those memories are. We're also realizing how much we took them for granted. When I think about my childhood, I realize how many things I took for granted. I should have watched movies more often on cassette tapes. I should have done more to get electronics and books featuring the Bratz doll brand instead of just focusing on getting the dolls. I should have done more to get video games to play on my brother's PlayStation 2. I should have done more to convince my parents to let me have cable sooner so that I could experience the golden era of Disney Channel and Nickelodeon in the late '90s and early 2000s. I also should have done more to convince my parents to get a working handheld video camera so they could record precious moments of my childhood.

When I think about the Millennial generation, I realize that we may not have had a lot of electronic stuff back in the day, but we felt freer and more alive than we do now. When we didn't have social media, we had friends and family whom we saw in person, and that was enough to keep us content. We felt more connected with our peers and had more meaningful conversations with people we saw regularly. Today, social media outlets such as Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms have caused us to become more disconnected than ever because we would rather try to connect with strangers we don't know (and who might not even be real) than connect with someone in person. In this case, Millennials realize that even communication was something we took for granted because we didn't understand how important it was to connect with another human being until social media came along and artificial intelligence (AI) started taking over.

“We grew up in the last generation that remembers what it felt like to be unreachable,” Christy explained. “To make plans and actually keep them because there was no way to cancel last minute. To be bored. To wait for your favorite song on the radio just to record it on a cassette tape.”

Speaking of artificial intelligence, we see every day how AI is growing and advancing to greater heights than anyone can anticipate. While it may seem exciting to witness technological advancements, it's also concerning because the more technology advances, the less value human life will have in society. This makes me mourn the past even more. Back in the '90s and early 2000s, I feel like human life had a more valuable place in the world. Now, it feels like the value of human life continues to decrease because of artificial intelligence. It makes me scared to think that one day technology will advance so far that human life will almost no longer exist.

Since I'm mourning the loss of the childhood I'll never have back, how am I coping with the world I live in today, which is forever changing? I think the easiest way I cope with modern-day changes is by simply not forgetting where I came from. It sounds simple, but it keeps me grounded in who I am as a person.

Overall, as someone who belongs to the Millennial generation, I believe it's important to cherish the Millennial spirit in your memories and in your heart. Nostalgia is a treasure you cherish forever.

        In February 2021, I was introduced to a film that was made in 2017 and featured well-known actress Dakota Fanning in the lead role. The film is titled Please Stand By, and it tells the story of an autistic woman named Wendy who runs away from her caregiving facility to submit a Star Trek script she wrote for a writing contest.

After watching the movie on DVD, I was able to connect with the film as someone who identifies as autistic. I wrote a blog post for a nonprofit autism organization known as Verge of Independence Project: Multimedia Autism Advocacy, an organization I work for as a blogger and staff writer. In the post, I described the film as a poetic love letter to the autism community, highlighting what it means to be misunderstood, underestimated, and denied opportunities because you're autistic, as well as the experience of proving people wrong by overcoming obstacles and surpassing expectations.

I recently rewatched the film, and once again, I was able to connect with it, but in a different way this time. This time, it was no longer about being misunderstood and underestimated as an autistic individual. Rather, it was about the struggles and hardships that come with being an invisible writer. I know this to be true because I'm one of those invisible writers.

Towards the end of the movie, there's a monologue that Wendy delivers to one of the staff members at Paramount Pictures about the complexities of writing. She says, “Do you know how hard it is to write something? All the thinking and planning and re-writing of everything you already wrote for somebody else to read? All the nights and days spent thinking?” She continues, “Thinking about the right words to say...thinking about the best way to say them? Because the story you wanna tell means so much to you? All those people that wrote those scripts, somebody's going to read them. And I just want a chance! Just like everyone else got!”

This monologue represents every writer who has ever poured their heart into a piece of writing and given it everything they had, only to have it rejected in the end. As a writer, I spent the past five months this year writing essays and short stories, hoping to eventually get published on a public platform. In the past, I've received multiple emails informing me that the essays I wrote had been declined for publication, and it was hard for me to deal with those rejections. Since January 7, I've spent almost every day either writing an essay or working on a short story so I can submit my work online on time. I spent days and weeks burning myself out to write stories and essays that matter to me. Having so many of my essays rejected made me feel like a failure and made me feel as though I'd been wasting my time. There were times when I felt tempted to give up writing because I wondered what the point was if my voice, creativity, imagination, and hard work were going to be pushed aside and rejected.

There are plenty of other writers who can relate to this feeling because they've written books, sent them to literary agents, and received rejection emails in return. When you're rejected as a writer, it can be a huge blow to your confidence because it can make you feel as though you don't belong as a writer. It makes you feel as though your voice is being ignored, and when your voice is being ignored, it can make you feel invisible. There are plenty of aspiring writers right now who feel invisible because all their hard work is getting them nowhere. These past several weeks have made me feel like an invisible writer because the hard work I've put into writing doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere. Sometimes, if you've been rejected enough, you can feel like you're writing into thin air. I'm sure there are plenty of aspiring writers who have been rejected so many times that they feel the same way.

Those are the struggles and hardships that come with being an invisible writer, and rewatching Please Stand By helped me realize how complex the writing process can be. Rewatching the mailroom scene in which Wendy delivers her monologue helped me understand the writing process on a deeper level. Wendy took a chance on herself, took a chance on a writing opportunity, and pursued her dream of becoming a writer by writing a script and embarking on a road trip to submit her story in time for the Star Trek writing contest. She put herself through a lot just so she could have a chance of being selected for publication.

Many aspiring writers take chances on themselves and their dreams just so they can have a chance of being published. I've spent more than five months taking a chance on myself by continuing to write essays and short stories in the hope that one day they'll be selected for publication. All I want is a chance...just like everyone else.

There are plenty of writers whose work has been published online or in books, so why can't that be me? Why shouldn't I be able to have my short stories and essays selected for publication? Most importantly, when will it be my turn? When will I stop feeling invisible?

Those are the most important questions that many aspiring writers ask themselves, especially after having their stories rejected. When will it be their turn? When will they stop feeling invisible?

The important thing about writing is that whenever you're creating a story, writing an essay or an article, or even writing a poem, you must be the one to accept your writing, your story, and yourself first. This is important because whether your writing is selected for publication or rejected, you must feel proud of yourself for the hard work you've put into something that matters to you. You must feel proud of yourself for taking chances and risks and trying something new that you've never done before. You must feel proud of yourself for being productive and consistent as you work toward an important goal. Even if things don't work out, at least you can say you pursued your creative ambitions and stepped outside your comfort zone. Many people would say that's a lot better than playing it safe and choosing to do nothing with your life.

In the end, I'm proud of myself for the productive and consistent effort I've put into pursuing my writing goals over the past five months. No matter what happens along the way, I want every writer to feel proud of themselves for their consistent efforts toward their writing goals, too.